


Haven

by sciencefictioness



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Breaking Up & Making Up, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:01:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22193710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencefictioness/pseuds/sciencefictioness
Summary: Baptiste is quiet even though Mauga knows he isn’t sleeping.  There’s an anxiety threaded through his scent that Mauga can’t entirely place.  He knows what Baptiste’s pain smells like, the discomfort that settles in him when he is injured.  The bullet wound in his arm is the least of the things bothering him.A pair of civilians had gotten caught in the line of fire that night.  It was nothing in the grand scheme of things, Talon has been tearing through cities all over the globe with no concern over collateral damage, but Baptiste hasn’t been the same since Monte Cristi— when Mauga found him at the docks looking haunted.Looking ready to run.  As though escaping Talon would do something to wash away the blood on their hands.As though it hadn’t soaked down into their bones already and colored everything that they were in shades of brilliant red.
Relationships: Jean-Baptiste Augustin/Mauga
Comments: 19
Kudos: 95





	Haven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ben_jaded](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ben_jaded/gifts).



> Thanks to mimi for commissioning me! <3 
> 
> A warning for fictional intersex omega biology.

A ceiling fan whirs in the dark overhead. The lights are all out, just the golden glow of a biotic field throwing the faintest of shadows on the walls. It’s dimming, now, mostly used up.

_ Like us,  _ Mauga thinks, and then pretends he didn’t.

It’s only quiet because they’re so far underground. The city is still bustling above them, nightclubs pumping synth beats out into the streets. There’s the noise of traffic, and the clamour of drunks as they stumble from one destination to the next. Somewhere in the din, people are searching for them— police. A SWAT team. Helix, maybe.

They won’t find them here.

Their team had scattered with the practice of people used to running for their lives, splitting into pairs and vanishing into the night. Doubleday with Mazzei, Pacanowsky with Cuerva. 

Mauga with Baptiste. They had safehouses all over the city— all over most cities, nowadays. The one where Mauga and Baptiste had found themselves was in the basement of an apartment building, a unit rented out by someone who didn’t exist, lying in wait for some sloppy mercenary who needed a few hours to hide.

They lay naked together in an unfamiliar bed, starched white sheets pulled up to their waists, the linen marred with smears of Baptiste’s blood. His bicep is wrapped in bandages; Mauga had let his guard down, just for an instant.

An instant was all it took. Baptiste would have another scar. Mauga’s fault again, except it wasn’t, really. Baptiste had earned it, too— laying blame is for children, and politicians, and Mauga has never been fond of either.

Baptiste had cleaned his wound in silence, then they’d showered and checked in with Cuerva. They tended to their weapons, and scrubbed down their gear. Extraction isn’t for another ten hours at least, so they crawl into bed for lack of anything better to do with their time.

Baptiste is quiet even though Mauga knows he isn’t sleeping. There’s an anxiety threaded through his scent that Mauga can’t entirely place. He knows what Baptiste’s pain smells like, the discomfort that settles in him when he is injured. The bullet wound in his arm is the least of the things bothering him. 

A pair of civilians had gotten caught in the line of fire that night. It was nothing in the grand scheme of things, Talon has been tearing through cities all over the globe with no concern over collateral damage, but Baptiste hasn’t been the same since Monte Cristi— when Mauga found him at the docks looking haunted.

Looking ready to run. As though escaping Talon would do something to wash away the blood on their hands.

As though it hadn’t soaked down into their bones already and colored everything that they were in shades of brilliant red. He’d come back to base with Mauga after that— angry in a quiet way that Mauga has never seen anyone else pull off. On most people it would be petulant.

On Baptiste it’s terrifying.

The past few weeks, his scent has been rife with unspoken fury and formless anxiety. It’s bad enough that Mauga snarls at any alpha that comes close— curls his upper lip and flashes his irises. When he gets caught, Baptiste side-eyes him with something akin to disdain. He doesn’t need Mauga to protect him. Dynamic doesn’t mean anything at all in Talon, or anywhere that matters.

Baptiste only needs protecting from himself, and Mauga isn’t suited for that.

He’s always been too soft for mercenary work. Baptiste is a healer at heart, even though he’s more dangerous with a rifle in his hands than almost anyone Mauga has ever seen. There’s a glint he gets in his eyes when he’s in the field, hands steady as he pieces one of their squad back together— hyper focused, like there’s nothing else in the world. Only Baptiste, and something he can fix. Something he can make right again.

It’s the same expression he wears when he’s looking down the sights of his weapon at someone who truly deserves the bullet he’s got racked. Usually he shakes things off and keeps moving, but this time, it feels different.

It feels like Baptiste is slipping through Mauga’s fingers. 

He splays out a hand on the small of Baptiste’s back and draws him closer, until Baptiste is all but on top of him. Baptiste sucks air through his teeth like he’s annoyed, but he doesn’t pull away when Mauga leans down to tuck his face into the curve of his throat.

Mauga rubs his mouth over the scars there, etched in the shape of his own hungry, relentless teeth. Baptiste wears Mauga’s mark. Mauga wears Baptiste’s. 

They’re supposed to belong to each other; some days it feels more true than others.

In that moment, it tastes like a lie.

Mauga runs his tongue over them anyway. He’s honest— with himself. With Baptiste. He wants him now, like he wants him, always. 

It’s Baptiste who’s distant. Baptiste who is miles away, even in Mauga’s arms. He can’t seem to close the space yawning between them, no matter how much he reaches.

Baptiste is going to run, sooner or later. Mauga would go with him. Would leave Talon behind if Baptiste said the word. 

Baptiste doesn’t say it.

Baptiste doesn’t say anything.

“Stop thinking so hard,” Mauga says, breathing him in.

He’s on enough suppressants that it’s hard to distinguish, but Mauga’s been pulling Baptiste into his lungs long enough to pick out the notes of Baptiste’s scent. It’s warm. Familiar.

Baptiste smells like home. Mauga joined Talon for money and a good fight, and found this instead. Baptiste’s hands on his skin. Baptiste’s mouth at his ear. Baptiste in his lap, slick and hot and demanding. Bossy, always.

There’s none of that, now. Baptiste lets Mauga hold him close, but sighs as he kisses him on the underside of his jaw.

“Everything will be better tomorrow, sunshine,” Mauga says, tugging the sheets higher over them both. He knows it won’t be. Things haven’t been that easy in a long, long time.

Baptiste sighs again, and Mauga coaxes his face up, waiting until Baptiste meets his eyes. Baptiste’s irises are unfathomably deep. 

Mauga could drown in them. 

“Me and you, yeah? The rest doesn’t matter.”

Baptiste’s brows draw together, anger flaring, but it fades just as quickly. He brings their mouths together, just once, lips barely touching. It’s like a stranger kissing him.

“I wish that were true.”

He lays his head on Mauga’s chest. Slides his hand up and presses at the scars on Mauga’s throat with his fingertips. Mauga shoves his nose into Baptiste’s hair, trying to commit the weight of him to memory— how they fit together, the sound of his breathing.

“I got your back, no matter what happens. I need you remember that, okay?”

_ I’ll go with you. _

Baptiste doesn’t ask.

The biotic emitter stutters and blinks out, finally, leaving them in darkness that’s too thick for Mauga to breach. He squeezes Baptiste tight, like he can hold him there.

Grief, Mauga realizes.

Baptiste smells like grief.

-

He isn’t sure what wakes him, at first. There is no noise, no light. No Baptiste moving around the room, footsteps far too loud for someone who often relies on stealth to keep himself alive. There is only a twisting sense of unease that has his chest tight, his instincts craving the comfort of his mate.

Mauga turns over and reaches for him, finding the sheets warm and tangled in the shape of Baptiste’s body. He pulls them to his face, inhales until it hurts. It might be the last chance he gets.

The thought cuts through him like a knife, and Mauga grits his teeth. Takes a ragged breath, and then another. It’s like when they end up on a mission with bad intel, and the squad has to fly blind to achieve their objective. 

Mauga feels blinded. Feels lost.

Baptiste could be in the bathroom, or down the hall at the vending machines, double checking their evac point. Mauga doesn’t have to look to know he isn’t.

Doesn’t have to wait to know he’s not coming back. He sits up in bed, glancing around the room with his throat tight, hands itching to hold someone who’s long gone. Baptiste’s armor is missing, along with his weapons. There’s a piece of gauze on the bedside table next to both their comms, bloodsoaked with a delicate flash of metal in the center— Baptiste’s tracker, cut out of the bend of his elbow. 

Talon had told them it was so they could be found if they went down somewhere on a mission. So that if they were unconscious, their team could still bring them home.

Even back then, Mauga had known better. He picks it up, the little bit of silver so small it’s difficult to hold between his fingers; it’s all Baptiste has left him. There is no note, no text, no message. Mauga doesn’t search for one.

Baptiste has said all he needs to say.

“Ah, sunshine,” Mauga sighs, pressing the still-warm sheets to his face again, Baptiste’s blood is still wet on the tracker. He hasn’t gotten far. Mauga could go after him. Find him, probably.

Except he doesn’t want to be found. Not by Mauga. 

Not by anyone. 

He breathes Baptiste in, and closes his eyes, and gives himself a moment to feel it— the way his heart is torn out. How easily Baptiste has gutted him. His stomach turns and his chest aches and it’s hard to get enough air. Mauga knew it would hurt like this, and he thought he’d been ready, but he was wrong. Baptiste is gone.

Baptiste is  _ gone. _

Mauga breathes Baptiste out of his lungs, and lets the sheets fall away from his face. Puts his tracker back in the little gory bundle of gauze. Sets all the vestiges of him aside. His evac team will be coming soon. The rest of the squad is probably waiting. 

Mauga gears up, and goes. Baptiste’s teeth are still in his neck.

It’s sore like he’s only just put the marks there; the pain doesn’t fade with time.

It sharpens instead. Mauga doesn’t mind.

It’s all he’s got left.

-

They send him after Baptiste.

Send him after his  _ mate. _

“Bring him home,” they say. “All will be forgiven.“ 

They don’t say that all will be  _ forgotten.  _ He knows what Talon’s forgiveness is like— bullets and broken bones and bodies in the ground. Mauga might want to find Baptiste, but not like this, with Talon breathing down his neck, ready to claw him back into the fold by any means necessary. He makes a show of looking; of quiet seething, and a short temper. From the outside, he appears furious— people expect Mauga to be angry at Baptiste for leaving, and he plays to it. 

But it would be like getting angry at ruins for falling down around him. What they built together was solid, but set on foundations that were constantly sliding under their feet. Too much blood on Baptiste’s hands. Mauga’s feigned indifference to it, like it didn’t keep him up at night, too.

Like it didn’t haunt him.

They tore through all the wrong places and overturned all the wrong stones, coming up empty handed time and time again. It wasn’t only Mauga pretending to do his best; he and Sombra shared long looks, both of them smug behind the others’ backs. 

If she wanted to find Baptiste they’d have found him, and everyone knew it. It wasn’t wise to push her, though. Talon picked their battles, and Sombra picked hers. Baptiste stayed in the wind.

Mauga always did like her. 

After a while they put him on the back burner.  _ Sombra will keep looking _ , they said.

_ If you feel anything from him, let us know. _

If Baptiste got close enough that Mauga could sense him. If he got hurt badly enough that it came through their bond, and Mauga could taste his agony.

If he went into heat, and Mauga could taste his  _ want.  _

There was nothing. There would be nothing. Mauga didn’t say it. Baptiste was always good at keeping himself locked down. 

Leaving Mauga behind would make him better, not worse.

-

It’s easier than Mauga expects.

It’s harder.

He dons his armor and hefts his machine guns and keeps working. The medic they put on his squad to replace Baptiste is an idiot but it’s almost a relief. If he’d been any good it would have felt like an insult, somehow. Like they truly thought someone could take Baptiste’s place at Mauga’s back. 

Nobody outside of his squad asks about it. Mauga is close to everyone, but no one is close to Mauga; he can tell they want to say something. They hold his gaze a few moments too long, shift in place when someone mentions Baptiste. He doesn’t glare, exactly.

It’s more like a dare. No one takes him up on it.

Every now and then Mauga gets a message on his tablet, a little violet sugar skull flashing and fading in the center of his screen. The videos are few and far between, shot from surveillance drones or hijacked security footage. 

Baptiste shielding civilians from gunfire. Baptiste sneaking into Talon facilities to steal tech. Baptiste limping down an alley, or slipping unnoticed through a crowd, jacket pulled up around his face. It tells him what he already knows. What he can feel in his chest— that Baptiste is alive. That he is well. Mauga doesn’t realize he’s restless until the sight of Baptiste soothes down unseen rough edges. The sight of his friend.

The sight of his lover.

It feels like someone has reached into his body and yanked out some of his ribs. Pulled out his flesh, and bone, and left him wanting.

The videos flicker out of sight and vanish after he watches them, which is probably for the best. Mauga doesn’t want to be some pathetic bastard, sitting in a dark hotel room and replaying grainy footage of someone who is better off without him.

The squad  _ does  _ ask about it. There are clashes, and accusations. Mazzei thinks Mauga knows where Baptiste is, and that he helped him get away clean. Doubleday usually seems inclined to agree, depending on his mood. Pacanowsky doesn’t care about anything besides his paycheck.

Cuerva takes Mauga aside.  _ You can tell me,  _ he insists.  _ I have a mate, too. I know what it’s like. _

Nobody knows what it’s like. Losing Baptiste is his own special brand of agony. 

They split them up for the next couple of missions, because they have to; because Mauga is going to lose his temper and break Mazzei’s fragile little spine in half. Because he’s going to close his fingers around Doubleday’s throat and snap it like a matchstick. 

Because Baptiste’s absence is like a wound with them around, and Mauga can only grit his teeth and bear it through a smile for so long. They put him with a trio of brand new recruits and a seasoned medic who’s quiet and efficient and enjoys putting bullets in people as much as taking them out. Mauga has to pick up their slack at first, but it’s fine. Or it will be, for the time being.

They’ll learn to keep up or die trying, and Mauga won’t mourn their loss.

There is only so much room in him for mourning.

Baptiste has taken it all.

-

Mauga’s regular crew is subdued when they finally start running missions together again. It doesn’t always go smoothly.

They’re benched with a half dozen injuries ranging from minor to nearly life threatening when some of Talon’s heavy hitters need backup. Sombra and Reaper both prefer to work alone, but when they’re doing something that requires more bodies on the ground, they’re always together. It’s refreshing, having her voice in his ear instead of his usual handler giving him orders deadpan and ignoring all his terrible jokes. She teases, and drags everyone, and life in Talon would be a lot less stifling if he was assigned to her more often.

Trying to work with Reaper for any length of time is less fun. Sombra seems to like him for reasons Mauga has long since given up on figuring out; there has to be more to him than meets the eye, but Mauga isn’t curious enough to go digging. Reaper really isn’t that interesting.

He’s good, but not as good as he thinks he is, and there’s no winning personality to back up the pissy attitude and general sense of elitism. Without the fancy nanite technology in his DNA and some kind of bizarre healing factor Mauga doesn’t entirely have a handle on, he’d be just another grunt. Good instincts, at least.

If nothing else he’s fun to harass. Mauga’s never seen him without his mask, but he can feel the annoyance radiating from Reaper in waves when he talks, no matter what’s coming out of his mouth. It’s always satisfying, especially with Sombra snickering in his ear as a reward. 

Mauga and Reaper are shoulder to shoulder, backs against the wall of some warehouse, his bone white mask giving nothing away. They’re waiting for Sombra’s signal before moving on their objective, Reaper brooding in that way he has that Mauga can sense without seeing.

“Why the long face?” Mauga whispers into the quiet, grinning wide. Reaper sighs and looks up at the sky.

They’re supposed to be chasing down some shiny new experimental Vishkar technology and bringing it back to Talon so they can try to reverse engineer it. 

They don’t expect to run into Overwatch. Mauga doesn’t, at least. There’s the rattle of gunfire, and Sombra swearing low over the comms.

_ Lo siento, chicos,  _ she says.  _ Las cagué. _ To Reaper.

To Mauga.

When they round a corner and come face to face with a handful of vigilantes, everyone freezes. Just for an instant. 

The space of a heartbeat. 

Mauga has heard rumors, through Sombra mostly— that Overwatch is reforming, worn out soldiers and young revolutionaries coming together to make the world safer again. It always sounds like bedtime stories to Mauga; fairy tales parents tell their children as they tuck them in at night, worried about what might lurk outside their doors. 

Baptiste isn’t a fairy tale, and he isn’t a fantasy. He’s flesh and blood and standing so close that Mauga thinks he could scent him if only there wasn’t so much gunpowder in the air. There’s a man next to Baptiste in a gaudy red, white, and blue jacket with a visor covering most of his face. Mauga’s never run into him before, but it doesn’t matter;  _ everyone’s  _ heard of Soldier 76. All of Talon has orders not to engage, partly because he’s supposed to be dangerous.

Partly because Reaper has laid claim to him,  _ that one is mine. _

_ Nobody touches him but me. _

He doesn’t look particularly dangerous. Even with the mask he looks old and tired, like sheer force of will is carrying him through. There’s blood on his jacket, splattered over his visor, but he doesn’t appear to be injured. A handful of Vishkar’s hired guns are littered around them, bleeding from flesh wounds or knocked unconscious.

Sombra would never have let anyone else in Talon stumble blindly into Baptiste if she’d known he was there. He looks up and their gazes lock, nostrils flaring as he sucks in a harsh breath. Mauga’s machine guns are pointed right at him, Reaper’s shotguns leveled at Soldier 76. 

Mauga lets the muzzles of both his weapons drop until they’re pointed at the ground, instinct demanding he aim somewhere else. Anywhere but at Baptiste. All the hurt wells up in him, fresh like he hasn’t spent years burying it— the spot at his back where Baptiste is meant to be. The empty space beside Mauga in bed. 

His arms closing around nothing in the dark, hands fisted in cold sheets, Mauga half asleep and reaching for a ghost. 

He misses him with everything he has, but only for fleeting moments when his guard is down. The ache is always there.

Mauga doesn’t lean into it. It leans into him, now; forces Mauga to take the weight. It wants to stagger him, and Mauga will let it, but later. When he is all alone. When there is no one to see.

When there isn’t someone dangerous and unpredictable beside him, capable of taking the only thing Mauga ever wanted with nothing but the pull of a trigger. 

Reaper’s guns are still high, poised to take off 76’s head if he fires. There’s a fraction of a second where Reaper turns, just slightly; like he wants to look at Mauga but catches himself. His shotguns drop a few inches.

They’re louder than Mauga remembers, going off so close to his mate. 76 jerks, curling down into himself, red blossoming over the battered leather of his jacket. The buckshot peppers holes along his right side. He’s hit in his lung, his kidney maybe; Mauga can’t be sure.

He can be sure it hurts, though, even if 76 doesn’t seem to feel it. Baptiste tears his eyes away from Mauga to look at the wound, brows furrowed and eyes dark. He’s doing that lightning-fast assessment of his, cataloguing the risks, already a dozen steps ahead of himself. 76 raises his rifle, like he’s going to return fire— Reaper isn’t closing the distance between them, isn’t turning himself into a tangle of nanites. 

Reaper isn’t doing anything at all. He’s utterly still, chin high and guns up, body language daring 76 to do something. 

Baptiste wraps an arm around 76 and jumps into the air, both of them bounding away in a blur as his exo boots hum to life. Reaper growls low in his throat and adjusts his right arm, following their trajectory as they arc towards the open bay doors of the warehouse. His index finger twitches down inside the trigger guard of his gun. All it takes is three pounds of pressure.

Nothing at all.

Mauga moves on instinct, slamming his shoulder into Reaper’s and shoving him violently to the side. Reaper stumbles but doesn’t go down, regaining his footing to whirl on Mauga, eyes flashing golden in the dark openings on his mask. He raises himself to his full height, chest puffed out and black wisps curling around them both. Sometimes he gets angry and can’t control his nanites.

Mauga doesn’t have them, but he can still relate to the feeling. Furious.

Falling apart.

“What the  _ fuck  _ was that?”

Mauga’s eyes flash back at him, head tilted to the side.

“You’re not that stupid,” Mauga says, lifting one of his weapons and tapping at the top of Reaper’s mask with the underside of the barrel. “Only the pretty ones are that stupid. You pretty under there, sugar?”

Reaper snarls and disappears into a cloud of smoke, roiling after 76 and Baptiste where they’ve fled out the bay doors. Mauga doesn’t bother chasing after them. Reaper is fast, but Baptiste is faster.

If Reaper really wanted to catch them that badly he’d have put his buckshot in 76’s face to begin with, instead of pulling his punches. He’ll return empty handed and bitch at Mauga the whole way back to base.

Then he’ll keep his mouth shut about everything other than the mission going sideways, if Mauga was to guess. He thought Soldier 76 was off limits because Reaper wanted to kill the man himself, but it’s clear that’s not the case. Mauga really doesn’t give a shit either way. 

About Soldier 76, about Reaper, about Overwatch. The tech is still there for the taking, which means the higher ups will be satisfied no matter what. Mauga pings the retrieval team, tells them to come collect their prize.

The warehouse is empty save a few groaning Vishkar mercenaries and a smattering of bullet casings on the ground. Mauga lifts one of his machine guns and rests the barrel on his shoulder, letting the other fall limp at his side. He’s breathless even though he hasn’t been running. The air still smells like gunsmoke; there is no trace of Baptiste. 

Mauga sighs and heads after them, splitting off in the opposite direction from Reaper to begin his half-hearted searching. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he actually found them. 

It’s easier when he mourns Baptiste like the dead; someone who can’t hurt him anymore. A scar, instead of a wound.

He’s a knife that drives itself deeper from time to time. 

Mauga takes it and pushes forward.

-

Mauga doesn’t find Baptiste. Doesn’t find Soldier 76. He does find the safehouse they’d been holed up in before their mission went awry. 

The scent of Baptiste is a living thing in the air, even entwined as it is with the traces of another omega. There’s the ozone smell of a burned out biotic field, and little drops of blood scattered in places. Mostly, there is Baptiste.

He is  _ everywhere.  _ It’s enough to make Mauga’s knees weak. His mouth waters, and his chest hurts.

There are two cots unfolded, one on either side of the small space, rumpled blankets spread out on top. Unrolled sleeping bags sit piled at the ends, folded on themselves to be used as makeshift pillows. Mauga moves across the room in a daze to take the thin cotton of one of the blankets in his fist and pull it up to his face. 

The noise he makes is animal, pure desperation that shifts into a croon as he sits down heavily on the cot. The metal groans under his weight. 

Mauga breathes Baptiste in and lets his eyes fall closed. The last few years he’s told himself again and again that he left it all behind and moved forward. That Baptiste is in his past. Not something he’ll forget— Baptiste is too ingrained in Mauga for that— but something he’ll only think of in passing, when memories intrude. A certain sound, a certain smell. A place they’d been together, maybe.

Somewhere that’s worse for having them there.

It’s a lie that’s impossible to believe when faced with this— some scant trace of Baptiste, powerful enough to have his hands shaking. Mauga hasn’t left anything behind.

He’s been  _ left  _ behind, cast aside in favor of all Baptiste’s precious morality. All Baptiste had to do was say the word, and Mauga would have laid everything down and followed.

All the money in the world wasn’t worth losing him.

Baptiste never asked.

Mauga only notices Reaper in the doorway when he hears the snarl coming out of his own throat unbidden. His eyes hurt with how bright they’re flashing. Reaper scoffs at him.

“Wrap up your little pity party. Evac’s here, time to clear out.”

He disappears out the door without another word. Mauga lifts the sheets to his face one last time and holds the fabric against his nose. If he closes his eyes, and shuts off his brain, he can almost pretend Baptiste is there with him; in the other room, or taking a shower. Gone somewhere.

Coming back soon to crawl in bed beside him.

Then he opens them again, lets the sheet fall down, and drags himself up to his feet. Things will be bad enough if Reaper decides to tell HQ that Baptiste was there, or that Mauga let them Overwatch agents get away clean. Lingering won’t do him any good— not with Talon, and not with himself. 

They’ve got the Vishkar tech packed up on the transport, but as soon as Mauga straps in, Reaper wraiths out the door.

“Where are you going?” Mauga asks, the last wisps of Reaper’s smoke vanishing down the ramp.

“I’ve got some unfinished business,” comes the reply, voice eerie and full of gravel like it always is when he speaks and isn’t fully formed.

“Of course you do,” Mauga says as the ramp folds up, sealing itself against the transport with a hiss. They take off, Reaper left behind to do who knows what; chase after ghosts.

Hunt down old soldiers. 

Mauga doesn’t hold it against him. It’s what he would be doing if he thought he could get away with it. It’s futile, most likely. Baptiste and 76 are miles away by now.

He sits back in his seat and shuts his eyes.

-

When he gets on base they pull him from the roster and put him on medical leave. Mauga glares at the medical tech, bright eyes and bared teeth.

“Why the  _ fuck  _ would you pull me? I’m not injured. I’m slated to roll out to Antofagasta the day after tomorrow.”

The med tech pushes his glasses higher on his nose without looking at Mauga, tapping away at his tablet.

“You’re in rut, agent. You’ll be off-roster until your labs come back within acceptable pheromone ranges. You can ride this out, in which case I estimate you’ll be cleared within five to nine days, or I can give you suppressant shots. Depending on what triggered the cycle you could be cleared as soon as the day after tomorrow, if they take. If they don’t take, it’ll simply delay your rut, and you’ll be benched for the original timeframe. It’s up to you.”

Mauga gets long needles jammed directly into the scent glands on his neck, wrists, and thighs for his trouble and heads back to his quarters, snarling at everyone he passes. Ruts used to be something to enjoy— Baptiste would inevitably go into heat, or as much of one as his suppressants allowed. They’d spend a few days tangled up together in a sterile room in med-sec with his knot fit snug into Baptiste’s cunt and his mouth latched onto his throat. 

It was always a welcome reprieve from the endless cycle of gearing up, rolling out, guns drawn. Bullets, and bloodshed. Evac, action report, cleanup, med check. Back to base, over and over, rinse and repeat. In their cycles, it was different.

It was him and Baptiste and nothing else.

Baptiste was all of Mauga’s best memories. Just the sight of him and a taste of his scent is enough to have Mauga growling at nothing and hard in his clothes, ready to fight his way to his mate and keep him safe then fuck him so soundly he can’t make words.

Except his mate left him behind.

Mauga punches the wall in his quarters, the metal groaning and splitting open the skin on his knuckles. He tears off all his clothes and lays in bed. 

All it takes is a fist around his knot and the thought of Baptiste and he’s coming in hot bursts over his fingers, onto his thighs.

He wonders if Baptiste is pathetic like him. If just seeing him is enough to trigger a cycle. If that old soldier he’s with will help him through it, fingers shoved into the slick heat of him,  _ easy, Baptiste, easy. I have you. _

Mauga has nothing at all. He curls a fist around himself again, hand stroking furiously, and wills the chemicals in his blood to start working. It’s agony going through this alone.

Baptiste is there in his memories.

Baptiste is a hundred miles away. Mauga can’t blame him for running. He couldn’t then, and he doesn’t now.

He only wishes he’d been enough.

-

The first day passes quietly. No one comes to bother him. Someone from the mess hall leaves food outside Mauga’s door, and someone from housekeeping collects the laundry he shoves in the chute beside it. There’s no word on when his squad will be slotted for a mission again, or if medical has released them back to active duty. 

It’s strange. HQ is usually so eager to get them all back in the field that they’ll handwave medical’s staunchest protests if it means getting a job done faster. It takes something serious, or seriously inconvenient, to get a person benched. 

An alpha in the midst of a cycle is a liability, but most of his squad’s injuries should have been patched up already. Doubleday might need another week or so, but Pacanowski and Mazzei would have been ready to roll days ago. Cuerva is their captain, but on the ground, Mauga is squad leader. He should have been told their statuses at the very least, but there are no messages on his tablet, no notifications buzzing through his comm on the bedside table.

It itches at the back of Mauga’s mind in the brief moments of lucidity he has between waves of rut that draw him under for a while before letting him resurface. His knot aches beneath his fingers, and he’s sweating and feverish. He’s furious in the way that only mated alphas can be, in rut all alone in spite of the scars in their throat. When the need in him starts rising it brings adrenaline with it, heartbeat going frantic— fight or fuck instead of fight or flight, but there is no one nearby suitable for either.

The second day is much the same, if full of more snarling on his part. If the suppressants were going to work it feels like they should have by now, which means Mauga has simply delayed the worst of his cycle instead of eliminating it. There’s still no word from medical on his squad, or messages from Cuerva. Where there would normally only be an annoyance, fury simmers hot and bright. There is a reason they don’t let alphas in rut in the field.

Mauga feels volatile. Feels incandescent with anger, like it’s boiling under his skin and trying to pour from his mouth. He’s hungry for Baptiste but in the absence of that, violence would suffice. 

It’s two in the morning when his tablet starts flashing, comm buzzing in unison with it, just off rhythm. Most of his lights are out, only a row of LEDs lit up along the bottom of the walls, illuminating everything in muted violet. Mauga has long since given up on sleep, but the quiet and dark is soothing all the same. He sucks air through his teeth at the interruption, picking up his comm and shoving it in his ear as he paws at his tablet with the other hand.

“Mauga,” he says after clicking the channel open on the comm, squinting with one eye at the brightness of his tablet’s screen. 

“We have a problem, mijo.”

Mauga sits up in bed and blinks at the tablet, a purple skull flashing for a moment before fading away. Usually when Sombra sends something to Mauga it’s a video of Baptiste. Still photos, sometimes. Audio recordings. 

What Mauga finds on his screen now is none of that. There are text files, and authorization forms and intelligence briefings; these are Talon action orders. Orders with familiar names on them— Mazzei. Pacanowski. Doubleday. Their new medic, Novak.

Cuerva.

They’re sending his squad out without him. Sending them out without  _ telling  _ him, which can only mean— 

“They’re going after your boy. They’ve been watching Reaper more closely than I realized. He has a knack for finding 76. Soldier and Baptiste split up but they’re tracking Baptiste anyway. Sent your squad out already, with another pair of teams in reserve in case they can’t close the deal. Evidently they still think he’s a threat, looking to tie up loose ends. I can’t let that happen.”

_ She _ can’t let it happen.

Mauga remembers pulling Sombra out of a wrecked transport vehicle, once. Carrying her to safety. Glass in her skin and cybernetics sparking,  _ thanks big boy, I owe you one. _

Sombra never really owed anyone unless it was convenient for her. Even if he hadn’t saved her, she’d still be doing this. Maybe not for him.

For Baptiste, though. 

“You got eyes on him? A location?”

Sombra makes a derisive noise.

“What do you think I am, some kind of amateur? He’s too close to you for comfort. Get dressed and gear up, your ride is waiting in the upper garage. Oh, and Mauga?”

“Yeah sweetheart?”

She loves pet names, except when someone really means them.

“I wouldn’t leave behind anything I was particularly attached to. Don’t think you’re going to be welcome here anymore, entiendes?”

“Claro,” Mauga replies without missing a beat, already on his feet and pulling on clothes. There are only a few things he can’t live without; his armor. His guns, along with a few belts of ammunition. Some biotics, maybe. Mauga isn’t leaving anything important behind.

He wonders if that is how Baptiste felt when he slipped out of their room all those years ago in the dark. 

Like he had everything he needed. Like there was nothing he would miss.

Then he puts the thought away and heads out the door. If Baptiste doesn’t want him anymore, that’s fine.

Mauga just needs him to keep breathing.

Sombra is in his ear from time to time, feeding him codes to get in the armory, directing him to the car she’s got hotwired in the garage. 

“So, what do you know about Overwatch?” Sombra asks as he slips into the driver’s seat of some laughably ordinary sedan, machine guns riding shotgun. The irony is lost on them.

“Not much,” Mauga says, tearing out of the parking garage and towards his destination. “Bunch of boy scouts saving the world. Baptiste probably loves it there.”

“Well, I put in a good word for you, and they do owe me one. Several, really. Between that and Baptiste, maybe they won’t put a bullet in you.”

Mauga laughs.

“They could certainly try.” Then, after a moment, “So I’m joining Overwatch now? That’s news to me.”

“Most things are news to you. Just drive the car and don’t think too hard, okay? That’s how you get wrinkles.”

Mauga snorts.

Underneath the banter, there’s fury burning through him. Talon going back on their word and running Baptiste down without him shouldn’t really be a surprise, but Mauga finds it stings anyway. Some stupid, sentimental part of him had been holding onto the idea of Baptiste coming back; pulling on his old armor. Fighting at Mauga’s side, again. He should have known better. 

Talon is a poison, and Baptiste was right to get out when he had the chance.

When he had the  _ courage.  _ He’d always been braver than Mauga when it mattered the most.

Mauga should have known he’d have to burn all his bridges to get back home.

-

His rut is blooming more powerfully with every passing hour. It’s been years, but Mauga doesn’t remember it being like this; painful enough to steal his breath. Desperate enough that he wants to wrap his hand around his knot and keep it there to soothe the hurt. There’s not a lot of traffic once he gets away from base, which is fortunate. Mauga might plow straight through anyone who gets in his way right now.

He ditches his vehicle on the curb in the middle of some ubiquitous American industrial district after a hundred miles or so on Sombra’s orders. It’s decrepit enough that Mauga isn’t sure it matters that it’s a weekend— he doubts anyone has come to work in any of these buildings in a long time. 

Leave it to Baptiste to have his dramatic last stand well away from civilians, where there’s nowhere to run if he gets pinned down. It isn’t going to be hard to find him.

Mauga can smell blood. Can smell gunpowder.

Can smell Baptiste, sweet and lush and oh, f _ uck. _

Baptiste is in heat.

“Seems like your squad found him already. Hope you weren’t too attached to any of them. They’re sending the reserve teams towards your location.”

He flexes his jaw. Tightens his grip on his weapons.

“How many?”

Sombra hums musically, like it’s some trivial thing.

“Two full captained squads, coming from different directions. Rivers’ squad is one of them, with the double heavies. I’d suggest you get moving before things get too interesting. I’ve gotta go, but I’ll check back in when I can. Getaway cars are marked on your map, got a few weapons caches here and there. Safehouses we talked about should still be green but don’t get sloppy. Get your boy out of there, alright?”

“Copy that,” Mauga says, already running towards the scent of violence and the sound of heavy breathing. 

When he flies through the entrance of some dilapidated metal shop, he finds a bloodbath. Mazzei is just inside the door with a neat bullet hole straight through his forehead. Pacanowski lays behind a pile of rusting steel beams, eyes open and staring at nothing, guts spilling out into his hands. Doubleday is only recognizable by process of elimination; there’s nothing left of his face. A grenade took it off, maybe, or a whole lot of bullets. Mauga doesn’t take the time to figure it out.

Cuerva is still breathing, but not for long. He’s at Baptiste’s feet, throat slit, gurgling as he tries to make words. It’s nothing important.

He was always an asshole. No one is going to miss him. Novak is nowhere to be seen— Mauga wouldn’t put it past him to cut and run once the rest of his squad was down. He never had the grit that a combat medic really needs to get by in the field. Not like Baptiste.

Baptiste is gore-spattered and gasping for air, shoving a needle into his arm and pressing the plunger down on a syringe full of biotics. He’s hit somewhere high on his shoulder. There’s the slash of a knife wound on his forearm.

When he sees Mauga there’s surprise on his face, quickly eclipsed by utter betrayal.

“Hey sweetheart,” he says, taking a moment to spit blood on the ground, lip curling back from his teeth. “You too, huh? Didn’t think I’d be seeing you here.”

It’s only in that moment that Mauga realizes what it looks like; that he’s come for Baptiste just like the others. That he’s there to finish the job.

The urge to run to Baptiste and sweep him up in his arms is powerful, but Mauga resists. Sets his guns on the floor slowly, then stands back upright, palms raised in surrender.

“There’s more of them coming. Sombra told me where you were. I’m here to help you.”

Baptiste narrows his eyes and sneers.

“I’m sure. After all this time. Out of the kindness of your heart.”

The scent of him is a blade in Mauga’s chest. The sight of him bleeding makes Mauga want to snarl.

“You didn’t want me tagging me along. I knew you were safe, or as safe as you’d ever been. There are at least a dozen more agents coming, though, and you’re already hit. Let me help you get out of here. Once I know you’re safe you can leave me behind again. You don’t even have to wait until I’m asleep this time.”

Mauga hadn’t realized how fresh the hurt was, even now, lying dormant in him like moss in the desert and coming to life at the first hints of rain. Baptiste scoffs, touching the injury on his shoulder with hesitant fingers and trying not to wince.

“If you wanted to find me, you would have.” The bitterness in the words is thick and well worn but unsettled.

Perhaps Mauga is still a wound in Baptiste, too. Mauga throws his arms out, eyes flashing with anger he thought he’d already laid aside.

“I would have come with you! Would have left Talon behind! If you had wanted me there, you would have asked. It’s not as if you didn’t have the chance. A hundred chances.”

All those nights, the two of them laying awake in the dark. Bloody sheets and empty magazines.

Baptiste gives him an incredulous look, mouth open as though ready to argue when a sound stops them both short. Rhythmic footsteps. Whispers of communication. One of the other teams must have been right behind him; Mauga sweeps his weapons up from the floor and moves in a rush so that Baptiste is behind him.

“On me,” Mauga says. “At least until we handle these assholes.”

Baptiste grumbles something unintelligible, but Mauga can feel when he steps in close behind him. 

Having Baptiste at his back again is like breaking the surface of the ocean after being under too long. He can finally breathe, and when he does his lungs are full of Baptiste, bloodstained and slick with heat and alive with righteous indignation. He is as he’s always been.

It is Mauga who’s different.

“Shield up,” Mauga says, pulling a metal disk out of his armor and activating the barrier with the press of a button, listening to it hum to life around them. Fragile, glowing crimson. It will have to be enough.

“On you,” Baptiste says. Mauga grins. 

Bullets erupt all around them. Baptiste is close, smelling like heaven and hell all at once.

All is right with Mauga’s world, and if it isn’t, it will be; Baptiste will see to that, one way or another.

-

They’re outnumbered. Outgunned. It doesn’t matter.

Baptiste fights like a monster, even feverish and panting. Mauga’s rut is gasoline on an open flame. It isn’t pretty— Mauga takes a bullet to the thigh when his first shield shatters before he can activate the second. Baptiste gets a graze high on one cheek. Another scar. Mauga’s fault again.

Their enemies fall like stones, one after another. The last of them gets into Baptiste’s space before Mauga can blink, and the two of them go down in a tangle of limbs. Terror rises in him, then falls away.

Baptiste is beautiful splashed in red with some dead man slumping lifeless to his side, looking at Mauga to make sure he’s safe. Mauga’s eyes are bright, and his teeth throb in his jaw. He can’t help the crooning.

Baptiste will just have to endure it. Mauga can’t make himself stop.

“We need to get out of here,” Baptiste says, and all Mauga can do is nod. 

He throws an arm around Baptiste’s waist, face shoved into his throat with a whine. The scars are still there, of course. Mauga’s hungry, relentless teeth. They’re supposed to belong to each other.

It’s the only truth Mauga knows.

Baptiste clings back. Whines. Only for a moment.

Then he’s trying to pull free of Mauga’s grasp, eliciting a hiss from him as he holds tighter.

“I know,” he says. Mauga growls. He  _ doesn’t  _ know. Baptiste ignores him. “Not the time or the place. Let’s get somewhere safe and we’ll talk, yeah?”

With the way Baptiste is pressing into him with his body, warm and eager even as he tries to push away with his hands, Mauga doubts they’ll do much talking for a while. That’s alright with him.

He hopes they’ll have time.

“Overwatch has a safehouse a few miles from here, if we—”

“No,” Mauga mumbles into his jaw, feeling the way Baptiste’s stubble scrapes his skin. “Dunno which of those are compromised. Reaper has been keeping tabs on your soldier friend. Sombra has some bolt-holes we can use.”

“Of  _ course  _ she does,” Baptiste sighs. 

Mauga finally allows Baptiste to shove him off. He picks up his shield off the ground and deactivates it. It’s cracked and stuttering, mostly used up.

_ Like us,  _ Mauga thinks.

There’s no use pretending otherwise. People like Mauga get chewed up and spit out when Talon is done with them.

People like Baptiste keep going until they can’t anymore. Scarred up ex-mercenaries. Old soldiers. They pick up their weapons and stagger out the door together. 

Towards safety, however fleeting.

Whatever happens, it’s better than being without him.

-

They come across the other Talon squad on their way to one of Sombra’s safehouses. Rivers, and his two heavies. It would have been easy, if they hadn’t gotten cocky. Things get close.

Things get dirty. Mauga crushes a man’s throat in his hand. He bludgeons one to death with the sizzling remnant of his shield generator. 

Baptiste sinks his thumbs into another man’s eyes. Puts a bullet right into someone’s mouth.

They find one of the vehicles Sombra pinpoints for them and drive it a few dozen miles before limping down into the basement of a ramshackle apartment building. The room they find themselves in is fancier than Talon’s usual digs— there’s an elaborate computer setup in one corner, and a kitchenette stocked with food and booze on top of the usual medical supplies. One of Sombra’s personal hideaways.

Mauga owes her again. He has a feeling she won’t let him forget. His machine guns hit the ground, followed by his last shield generator and a half belt of ammo.

He’s got Baptiste pressed against the wall beside the door before it’s even fully closed, working at the clasps of their armor as he mouths at Baptiste’s throat.

“Missed you,” he says, pieces of metal clattering to the floor one by one until all that lay between them is soft fabric and the memory of too many years. “Missed you so fucking much, sunshine.”

Mauga’s got a knee between his thighs, struggling with the last of his armor. Baptiste is breathing hard through his nose, chest heaving. He’s wet— Mauga slips a palm down between his legs, feels the slick soaking through Baptiste’s clothes. Mauga can taste gunpowder and someone else’s blood on Baptiste’s skin. Baptiste whines, knees easing wider.

He lays a palm on Mauga’s chest, and pushes.

“Wait, wait, just. Wait.” Mauga eases back, staring into Baptiste’s eyes. Waiting. Hungry. It’s been so long, but if Baptiste doesn’t want him, Mauga won’t push. “You’re not going back after this. You’re done with them.”

It’s not spoken like a question, but Mauga knows it is one. He laughs, hands on Baptiste’s hips, squeezing.

“Go back to do  _ what?  _ Eat a bullet? They know I came after you. There’s no going back now.” 

Baptiste’s brows are furrowed, eyes narrow like he’s looking right through Mauga to see all the darkest places inside.

“And if you could go back?”

Mauga hums.

“I dunno, I heard Overwatch is looking for handsome, dangerous, morally grey ex-mercenaries. Thought I might give that a shot. Hear the company is decent, at least.”

Baptiste can’t fight back a smirk.

“Handsome might be a stretch,” he says, and Mauga knows he’s won. 

He hooks his hands underneath Baptiste’s thighs and hefts him into the air, digging a biotic field out of his bag before carrying him towards the bed. Mauga tosses him down onto the mattress, taking a moment to pop the field and set it on the table before collapsing on top of him. He flattens Baptiste against the blankets, face tucked into his throat. They can’t do anything like this, but he needs a moment to breathe.

To feel Baptiste underneath him, surrounded with nowhere to go. The ache is there again, suddenly, all those years alone digging into him and refusing to let go just yet.

“It was hard without you, sunshine. Don’t wanna do that again.”

Baptiste tilts his head to the side, letting Mauga nuzzle closer.

“I didn’t want to do it the first time. It didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

Mauga nods because he knows. He knows this is his fault. That it’s always been on him as much as Talon. 

He’d known Baptiste wanted to leave. That Talon was breaking him, slowly but surely. Mauga hadn’t known what else to do, though, so he’d kept doing the same old things and expecting it to get better.

“Tell me how to fix it.”

_ Tell me how to fix  _ us.

Baptiste runs his hands through Mauga’s tangled hair, tugging on the strands.

“Don’t know, exactly. Just stick with me, yeah?” Mauga nods, running his palms up Baptiste’s sides and rucking up the fabric of his shirt. 

He can do that. 

Mauga doesn’t think he’s capable of anything else, anymore.

Then Baptiste arches underneath him, grinding his hips forward against Mauga with a rough exhale.

“For now, though…”

For now Baptiste is wet and hot and achy, and Mauga has been waiting an eternity to soothe him again.

It only takes a minute or so of frenzied tugging to get them both naked, and then Mauga it sucking at the scars on his throat, wide fingers pressing into the heat of Baptiste’s cunt. It’s slick, and the slide is easy, but Baptiste mewls like it’s already too much.

“You haven’t been touching yourself?” Mauga asks, and Baptiste shakes his head.

“Makes… makes it worse. You know that.”

If Baptiste was approaching a heat, he’d always wait for Mauga. Said trying to get off on his own was worse than waiting, and Mauga didn’t really understand, but it was always gratifying; Baptiste in their quarters, thighs pressed together, panting with the effort it took to resist the impulse.

It’s even more gratifying now, feeling Baptiste grind down onto his fingers, pulsing wet around them as his legs shake. Baptiste isn’t small, but he’s small under Mauga— even two of Mauga’s fingers is a stretch.

Or it would be, if Baptiste wasn’t in heat, body parting like silk and begging him for more. Mauga sits up and lays his palm on the inside of Baptiste’s thigh, forcing it wider to watch where his fingers are slipping in and out of him. Shining with his slick, lips dark along the edges, pink inside as Mauga coaxes him wider. His cock curls up from between them, hard against his belly, leaving streaks of white.

“Fucking beautiful,” Mauga says, staring as he fingers Baptiste open, slipping a third one into him. Baptiste shivers, and glares.

“Enough fucking around,” Baptiste says, arms thrown over his head and hands fisted in the pillow above him. “Need your knot.”

He’s not begging. He’s giving orders.

Some things never change.

Mauga leans forward to kiss him, pulling his fingers out and wrapping his arms around Baptiste’s waist. He flips them both so that Baptiste is straddling him, sex burning hot against the length of his cock. His knot is already half-formed; it throbs as he rocks forward along Baptiste’s slit.

“Thigh’s still fucked up. Don’t think there’s an exit wound on that gunshot wound. You’ll have to take care of things until that field finishes working its magic.” It’s not meant to be teasing; Mauga is just being honest. He can’t really fuck Baptiste like he wants right now, but that’s alright.

Baptiste has always been good at taking what he needs from Mauga.

He reaches down between them, nudging the crown of Mauga’s cock into himself and then dropping down onto it. Carefully. Languidly.

Even in heat, it’s the work of a few minutes. Baptiste isn’t used to taking him anymore, and if he rushes things, Mauga will hurt him without trying. The slide is wet but viciously tight. His eyes are squeezed shut, lips parted as he pants, Mauga’s cock slipping into him with agonizing slowness. Mauga rubs his hands up and down Baptiste’s thighs, feeling the way they quiver as he struggles to hold himself aloft. The last few inches are the most arduous— Mauga’s knot is almost fully formed. 

When he finally settles against Mauga’s hips both of them are gasping. Baptiste is soaked in sweat as he lurches forward to lay against Mauga’s chest. Mauga wraps his arms around Baptiste and holds him tight as they catch their breath together. He doesn’t know how long he has been crooning. Mauga is simply aware of it all at once. Baptiste is finally where Mauga needs him.

It hurts more than all the loneliness, for a moment. Mauga squeezes, and shoves his face into Baptiste’s throat, lips pressed into the marks he left behind— back when they were younger. When they were stupider.

When they thought it would be easy, all because they loved each other.

Baptiste makes a noise in his throat like Mauga is hurting him, so he eases up a little, nuzzling apologetically into his jaw.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t… don’t be. It’s okay.” Baptiste is still breathless, voice strained as he lifts up a few inches before dropping back down. “It’s been hard for me, too.”

Mauga whines, and Baptiste echoes the sound, and then they’re moving together. Baptiste tugs at Mauga’s hair, and runs his hands over the tattoos on Mauga’s chest. Mauga can’t stop touching Baptiste— his thighs, his abdomen, muscles flexing as he rolls his hips to take Mauga deeper and deeper. There’s still blood on both of them. Some of it’s theirs. 

Some of it isn’t. 

Mauga lays a palm over Baptiste’s stomach to feel the way it swells when he ruts into him, his cock making it distend just slightly with every thrust. Baptiste’s lashes flutter, pupils wide and black. Mauga presses down, and presses in, and Baptiste shudders all over as he comes with a whimper. 

Mauga’s knot swells, locking them together as he pulses into Baptiste in hot bursts. It should be embarrassing, finishing so quickly, but there is no shame in him. Baptiste is tight around him, muscles clenching to milk his knot dry, body still giving weak little shivers. 

Even before Baptiste left, it had been a long time since things felt right between them. It’s not perfect, now, but it feels open. Feels honest.

Feels like he has a chance to keep Baptiste, finally. Mauga can work for it if he needs to. When he needs to.

For as long as he needs to.

He doesn’t know when Baptiste went into heat, but now that they’re together, it will drag on for at least a day. Mauga’s knot will go down, and Baptiste’s need will rise again, and the two of them will work together to sate it again and again.

It will be exhausting. Mauga smiles against Baptiste’s temple.

“God it’s good to have you back. Fucking love you, baby.”

Baptiste pats absently at his bicep in agreement, evidently still incapable of words. 

He’ll be running his mouth soon enough, Mauga is sure of it. He closes his eyes. Breathes Baptiste in; he smells like contentment. Up above there are people looking for them. Talon. Overwatch, maybe.

They won’t find them here.

-

They’ve got their guns drawn when Mauga and Baptiste arrive, loaded and ready but pointed at the ground. If Baptiste wasn’t so close, they’d probably have them up, barrels pointed in Mauga’s direction. It’s fine. He doesn’t mind.

They’d be a fool to trust him the way Baptiste does without all the history to go with it. Mauga smirks, gives them all a wave. 

“Nice to meet you guys too! Great place you got here, really.” 

The Watchpoint they’re at is one of the few that’s back online, but they haven’t finished getting the dust off the place yet. It’s rundown, cobwebs in the corners and sparks flying here and there. Mauga isn’t sure how he knows 76 is glaring at him, but he can feel it through the visor. There’s short guy on skates of some kind throwing him a skeptical look. A cowboy gnawing on a cigar, utterly unimpressed.

“He gets worse before he gets better,” Baptiste says. Mauga would be offended, except it’s true.

  
“So much worse,” he agrees with a grin. Baptiste rolls his eyes and pushes past the crowd, confident they’ll let Mauga pass even without him playing human shield between them.

It will take some getting used to for everyone. Mauga doesn’t know it he’ll ever fit in here quite the way Baptiste does, but that’s okay, too.

He fits with Baptiste, and the rest will have to do.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Tell me nice things, here or on [twitter.](https://twitter.com/scifictioness?lang=en)


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